Heaven Coming Down
by pepsicolagurl
Summary: A flashy and mouthy assistant district attorney has become personally involved in one of the crime lab's cases. Can they protect her, or will they be forced to watch as her entire future goes up in flames. (In progress)
1. Chapter One

Title - Heaven Coming Down

Author- pepsicolagurl

Rating - R for language, situations, violence and the whole shebang

Disclaimer - Don't own anything, so don't sue. The song is taken from the Tea Party song of the same name, found on _Big Shiny Tunes 4_, and I believe on _Triptych_, and _Tangents-A Tea Party Collection_, but don't quote me on those last two.

Author's Notes - After writing so many Calleigh/Speedle stories, I'm returning to what used to be my bread and butter...the dreaded _original character_ story. This was started (or at least, the idea hit me on the head like an anvil and left me with an eight month creative concussion) before the _Lost Son _episode happened, which means that Tim Speedle is still alive, kicking, and the object of my affections. By the way, this is going to be a LONG story. Other than that, enjoy and let me know what you think.

* * *

Heaven Coming Down  
Part One  
Chapter One

It would have been impossible not to realize that she was angry. Cheeks flushed, eyes flashing, and heels stomping on the pavement, she stalked away from her sporty convertible and towards the entrance doors to the Miami-Dade crime lab. As soon as she had swung the door open, the woman behind the desk had a resigned look on her face. There wasn't a day that passed when the assistant district attorney came in that she wasn't angry, and it was always because of one person. The woman reached for the sign-in sheet and the visitor's badge at the same time, wishing that she could break protocol and just wave the woman past her. Unfortunately, she valued her job.

The prosecuter in question slammed her leather briefcase down on the counter before snatchign the pen away and scribbling her name. "One day, I'm going to kill that pretentious son of a bitch," she muttered under her breath as she took the laminated pass and clipped it to the lapel of her suit jacket. With barely another look at the woman, she took her briefcase in hand and hurried down the hallway, not bothering to look in any of the glass encased rooms, even when familiar faces looked up to see her pass. Instead, she turned a corner and went up the stairs to the next floor, heading immediately to the room she knew he would be hiding out in. When she saw his lanky frame bent over a microscope, she walked in, throwing her briefcase in the corner on a chair.

The movement caused him to look away from whatever he was doing, first looking at the high heeled shoes. His eyes swept up the bare legs to the black skirt, soft pink blouse, and black jacket. When he saw the dirty blonde hair and angry green eyes, he smirked. "Not you," he said, before looking back down to what he was doing.

"Yes, me." She walked closer to his work table and slammed her palms down on it, causing his test tubes to rattle. "You haven't returned my phone calls, you haven't made an appointment, and opening arguments are in less than a week. You can't do this to me, Speedle. You know what I'm like when you don't talk to me."

"So write down whatever you want and leave it with the rest of your messages. I'll get around to them when I have the time."

Her eyes rolled as she examined Tim Speedle. There was just something about him that caused her to groan whenever she heard his name. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he wore wrinkled and sometimes mismatched clothes, or the fact that he could never take that closer step to the razor, or the way that he talked down to her. She wasn't sure, but she knew that she didn't like him. "You're my only expert witness, because you're the only criminalist that worked on the case. I need to go over your testimony with you. You know that. I refuse to let one of my witnesses, even if he knows his way around these...machines, without talking with me first. How many times do we have to go over this?"

Speedle finally looked up again. "Look, Miss McIntosh, I don't need coaching. I've been to court often enough to answer your questions, and those of the defense. I don't need you putting words into my mouth, okay? You want to do that, grab a reporter that has a camera crew at the ready, and be my guest. It seems to be what you're good at."

He knew that he had touched a nerve when her eyes flashed dangerously. He had seen her angry a number of times, sometimes in the court room, but more often then not when she came down to the lab to scream at him. It wasn't that he was playing games with her. He had been to court often enough to know what she was going to ask him, and to anticipate what the defense attorney (whoever it might be in that case) was going to throw at him. It wasn't like it was rocket science. What it was, to him, was taking time out of his already busy work schedule to go down and translate the scientific terms into laymen's terms. And it was nerve wracking to boot. He didn't know how she stood in front of cameras and reporters all the time, making her statements, when he would get nervous in front of a closed courtroom.

Pauline McIntosh seethed quietly, color racing to her cheeks, before she finally let him have it. "Well, _Detective_ Speedle, forgive me for trying to do my job, but I'll have you know that-" She broke off when his cell phone gave off a number of beeps. "Go ahead, answer it. I'm just wasting my time here, anyway." She waited, tapping a foot ont he floor, until he hung it up and clipped it back onto his waist. "Let me guess, something came up and you had to go."

He took off the latex gloves he was wearing and shrugged out of his lab coat. "You know, there was this rumor going around that you were smart, but.." With that, he walked out of the door, leaving her alone. She took a deep breath to calm herself and took her briefcase in hand, walking out of the room,. She didn't get very far when a familiar blonde head popped out of another room, the friendly face grinning brightly at her. "What, you want to beat me down some more?" she asked, looking at the woman. This time, however, her words were teasing.

"Well, I saw you storm in here, and I knew that only one person could get you in that sort of mood," Calleigh Duquense explained, stepping further into the hallway. "I know to stay out of your way when you're like that."

"Apparently, so does Speedle, because he just hauled ass out of here like it was on fire." She took what she hoped would be a calming breath and allowed her anger to subside somewhat. "One of these days, I swear, I'm just going to give up, but unfortunately, I like my job. I'd like to keep it. It would seem that he isn't too thrilled with that idea."

The painfully blonde woman smiled sympathetically. "Do you want me to talk to him?" she asked, her words tinged with a Southern accent. "I could try and beat some sense into that...what did you call it...badly in need of a haircut and good stylist...head?"

Although the words made her smile, they didn't make her laugh, like she normally would have. "Nah, it's all right, Cal. Worse comes to worse, I'll make another call to the Lieutenant, who'll make a call to Speedle, who'll make a call to me, so that he can let me know how 'disappointed he is in me that we couldn't work this out on our own'. It's the same game that I play with him every time, and we both know the rules by heart. He'll drop by the night before the case, when I should be preparing and getting sleep, but no, he can't fathom that. So, instead, I go through his testimony with him five times, make sure he swears he'll shave and wear a tie, and then I get an hour of sleep before I have to get to the courthouse." She took a deep breath. "Wow."

Calleigh nodded, eyes wide. "And I thought I was the queen of rambling. Look, why don't we go out for dinner tonight? You obviously need to unload, and there's no better way to do that than over a few glasses of red wine."

Now, Pauline laughed, a delicate sound that seemed to belong to the well put-together woman. "You're on. I'll call you."

With that, the assistant district attorney left the building.

* * *

They haggled over the bill, like they always did. More often than not, Pauline ended up paying for the meal and drinks, but not without Calleigh putting up a good fight. It was a battle of credit cards, one that Pauline's Mastercard won, and she sat back in her chair, smirking at the blonde woman across from her. The two women had attracted a number of looks that evening, from both women and men alike. The usual stares because of their striking resemblance, though there was no blood ties between them, or for that matter, any family. Calleigh, the Southern girl with the charming accent, blonde hair, and blue eyes. Pauline, the Eastern girl with the barely there accent, blonde hair, and green eyes. They were more used to it than they would have cared to admit.

It had only been three years ago that Pauline had moved to Miami, and taken the position as one of many assistant district attorney positions after much wooing and ass-kissing. Before long, she had developed a rapport with most of the Miami-Dade crime lab, and the detectives that worked with them. Although she wouldn't say that she was on a first name basis with all of them, she had nutured a relationship to the point that she had an unofficial office hidden intheir lab, where she stored files and did a modicum of work when she had to escape the hustle and bustle of her own office. The only rough spot was, of course, Detective Timothy Speedle.

The waiter appeared suddenly, with her credit card and waited as she signed the accompanying slip, passing the leatherbound folder back. The women stood up and moved away from their table, collecting their coats. Almost immediately, Pauline's cell phone began to ring. She fished it out of her purse, fumbling with it for a moment as Calleigh chuckled at her. "Pauline McIntosh," she chirped into the phone, her face falling immediately. "Why am I not surprised that you've decided to call now? Meet me in my office, I'll be there within twenty minutes." Without another word, she hung up the phone and dropped it back into her purse.

"Tim?" Calleigh asked, as they both shrugged into their jackets.

"Who else would make me be so short on the phone?" she asked in response, rolling her eyes and pulling her hair out from beneath her collar. "I knew this was going to happen. My entire evening is all shot to hell because of him. I meant what I said earlier. I'm going to kill him one of these days."

The criminalist laughed as they left the restaurant, turning towards the parking lot at the end of the street. "You'd better be careful. Don't forget, I'm a witness now." The women laughed. "You two have been at each other's throats for three years now. Don't you think it's time to call a truce? Besides, we'd all be a lot happier at the lab."

"What do you mean?"

Almost simultaneously, they took out their keys as they neared the parking lot. "Well, anytime that the two of you have one of your verbal sparring contests, he ends up storming around the place, snapping at anyone who dares to look at him. He knows that he puts you in a bad mood, and he seems to enjoy it, but you put him in a bad mood, too. I swear, the way he acts, it's like another hurricane is blowing through the place."

"Hm. Hurricane Speedle. One can only hope that a house falls on him, a la the Wicked Witch."

"That was a tornado," Calleigh sighed, stopping at her jeep. "Why don't the two of you just try for once. It wouldn't kill you."

"You'd be surprised."

* * *

The interview process had gone about as well as she could have hoped. They managed to banter only a handful of times before getting down to business, although she had noticed the look of disdain in his eyes. She didn't enjoy that part of the job herself, especially when Speedle was the one that she was preparing for the stand, but she managed to push her way through it. Every now and then, he would toss in a snide remark to one of her questions, but she took Calleigh's parting advice before they had both driven off, and she had tried to just let all the comments pass by her like she never heard them. It didn't work all the time, however. There were two instances when she had taken his bait, and they had fallen into their usual war of words, before she had gotten too fed up to continue, barking at him to leave her office and to get the hell out of her sight before she did something that she wouldn't regret.

After that, silence had filled her tiny little room. There were only a handful of prosecuters working in the building, those who had a case on trial the next morning, and a few aides, who, though paid like their were nothing more than managers at their local McDonald's, worked harder than anyone. She remained there for awhile, listening one last time to the tape of Speedle's testimony that she had just made, before deciding to pack it up for the night. Or morning, considering the hour.

She gathered her things and went immediately to the elevator, ignoring a passing aide just like how she ignored her. She took the elevator back to the parking garage and dug her keys out before she stepped out into the dark area. There wasn't enough left in the budget to add some more powerful lights, or at least a guard to make them feel somewhat more secure, yet there was more than enough for the city to give the Miami-Dade crime lab a number of Hummers. "Fucking bureaucracy," she muttered to herself as she approached her expensive car.

She stopped in disbelief when she saw the scratch marks all along the vibrant paint, staring back at her like a pimple on prom night. "You have to be God-damned fucking kidding me," she said, her words beginning quiet, but ending in a loud yell. "Whoever did this, I swear to God, I will hunt you down and kill you!" she screamed, her voice echoing through the garage.

It was with a resigned sigh that she unlocked the doors and threw her stuff in the front seat, climbing into the driver's seat. This really wasn't turning out to be her day, she thought to herself as she pulled away.

And she never saw the word "bitch" written behind her space in bright red paint until the next morning.


	2. Chapter Two

Title- Heaven Coming Down

Author - pepsicolagurl

Rating- R for language, situations, violence and the whole shebang

Disclaimer- See Chapter One.

Author's Note- Better late than never, right? I think I finally got my voice back for this one, and I think I know which way this is going to end up. About time, huh?

Story Clarification- When I said that this was going to be a LONG story, this is what I meant: I started writing the first version of this when the first season of CSI: Miami had started. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled with it. What I've done for _Heaven Coming Down_ is combine three stories into one. So, there will be a Part One (which is what this is), a Part Two, and a Part Three. Sorry about the length. This story is demanding to be written.

* * *

Heaven Coming Down  
Part One  
Chapter Two

She looked up in surprise when the door to her office opened, but her expression changed as she smiled at the tall man, tilting her head to one side as she examined him. "Good morning, Lieutenant. Would you like a cup of coffee before we head out?"

Horatio Caine walked in further, closing the door behind him, and shaking his head. "No. What I would like is to know why you haven't filed an incident report yet?" At her blank expression, he continued. "I saw your car down there this morning."

Pauline sighed, leaning back in her desk chair. The decade old seat creaked in protest. "And what, say that someone keyed my car? It's nothing. Granted, it'll be a good two hundred dollars to get the paint touched up on that side, and to sand down the scratches, but it's not important." She gestured to the chair across from her desk, waiting for him to sit. "What were you doing, scouring through the parking lot for my car? It's nowhere near the guest parking."

"The guest parking was full. I took the first space I saw. And I happened to see not only your car, but what was written behind your parking space." Again, he saw that she didn't know what he was talking about. "Do you not look when you park?"

"Not when I haven't had my coffee. What little missive did they leave for me this time? Look, Horatio, this is a regular occurance. Someone gets mad because I put their loved one behind bars, or because the defendant was aquitted, and I'm left with hate mail, black roses, flaming dogshit on my door step...this has happened ever since I got promoted up here." Shaking her head, she chuckled to herself. "Trust me, this is nothing compared to some of the stuff that has happened to me before."

He frowned slightly, shifting in his seat. "I don't understand. You never file a report when something like this happens?"

She shook her head. "Look, people get angry. There's nothing that anyone can do to stop that. They don't like something that I do, they take it out on me. No one takes it too far. They make threats, but no one ever goes through with them. Any prosecuter in this building, and most of the defense attorneys that we work with can tell you the same thing. There's no reason to take up the police's time with something that isn't that big of a deal. You have more important things to do. We all understand that. I'm not in any danger, and if I see one cop car following me home tonight, I'm not going to be very happy with you, Lieutenant."

He allowed himself a small smile. "I wouldn't do that," he protested mildly.

"Then who was it that sent one to escort me home a few months ago, after that triple murder?" Her eyebrows raised for a moment as she regarded him and his sheepish smile, before standing. "Come on, we're wasting our time by discussing this. I'd like to visit the crime scene, so that I can get started on my three foot high stack of paperwork."

He jumped to his feet and opened the door for her as she gathered her lightweight coat and purse. "But Pauline, if anything happens..."

"You'll be my first call."

* * *

The smile died off of her face as she took the investigator by the arm, steering him into the corner. "What the hell was that?" she hissed, pulling her hand away from his upper arm as quickly as she could.

He shrugged, an incredulous look on his face. "I wasn't going to lie, Miss McIntosh. He asked me a question and I answered it."

"You basically admitted that you could have made a mistake when it came to comparing the fingerprints. You told me that you were sure that they matched, Speedle. You told me that there was no doubt in your mind that those prints were Alan Fawking's prints. That's why you got your damned warrant to search his place to begin with. And now, all that evidence can be thrown out because you now say that…some…computer search-"

"AFIS," Speedle said, interrupting her tirade. "It's called AFIS. The Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Started by the FBI-"

"I don't really give a shit whether or not the FBI, the CIA, or George Bush started it! You lied to me!"

"You never asked," he shot back calmly, rolling his eyes upward when he saw her cheeks flush red again, and watched as she crossed her arms under her breasts, cocking her head to the side. "You asked me if the prints matched and I told you that, yes, in my expert opinion, after years of examining loops and whorls, they matched. You never asked me if AFIS agreed or not."

She shook her head, looking away from him. "So, what you're telling me is that this AFIS computer thing didn't agree with you."

"It also didn't disagree. It shot back a number of possible prints and I eyeballed them. I compared them with a magnifying glass and found enough point matches to make it a legal match, according to the laws of Florida. None of the other possible matches could have come that close. I checked them all, twice. This was the only one that it could be. Why can't you understand that?"

"Because I'm not some high and mighty criminalist. Just like everyone on the jury. Damn it, Speedle, I told you-" She broke off and forced a smile on her face, nodding as the defense attorney came out of the courtroom. "See you in twenty, Thom," she said sweetly, blinking her eyes innocently.

The tall man smirked as he walked by. "Tough break, Pauline. I really thought that you had us there, but we'll see whether the judge throws all your evidence out the window or not. Thanks, Detective Speedle," he added with a chuckle as he walked by.

Pauline waited until he was out of earshot before continuing, picking up right where she had left off. "I told you to explain it as plainly as possible. Would it have killed you to say that you ran it through a computer system, the computer system gave you a few matches, and from those matches, you correctly identified the right fingerprint? That you matched it to the defendant? Would that be so damned difficult?"

"That's what I just said," he told her, frustration beginning to creep into his voice.

"Yeah, that's what you said, but in technical terms. Sure, some of those jury members might be _Law and Order_ fans, but that doesn't mean that they understand this. That's fiction, this is reality. And in reality, not everyone went to an expensive school to learn how to look at fingerprints. It would have been fine if you could have said this during direct, but no, they have to pry it out of you during cross-examination. Do you know how bad that makes my case look? That I can't get all the information from my expert witness? God!"

"Calm down. It won't be that bad. They can't throw out the evidence that I collected. Too much of it points the finger at him."

"And that's why they will throw it out, Speedle. Because it all points the finger at the defendant. It all says that he's guilty. And all of it was collected because I talked to a judge that signed a warrant. A judge that signed a warrant because your fingerprint match was apparently solid. Now, it's not."

Speedle watched suspiciously as she moved to stand beside him and slumped against the wall, her eyes going down to the expensive heels she was wearing. "Why are you so concerned with putting him away? Can't lose a case, Miss McIntosh?"

"This man hurt people. Not just people, but children. Young kids. He doesn't deserve to be walking around like the rest of us. He doesn't deserve to go free, because the moment he does, he's going to start hurting more kids. You know the statistics for child molestors. They don't stop. They just escalate, and go after more people. He can't stop himself, and we could have stopped him, if we could have put him in jail. Now that's looking a little bleak." He remained silent, his eyes on her. She finally straightened up and took a deep breath. "Go get yourself a cup of coffee or something. I need to call the office. Be back here in fifteen minutes," she said, her voice completely professional again.

His eyes followed her as she stalked away, pulling a cell phone out of her briefcase as she walked away from their little corner. He shook his head, a hint of a smirk coming onto his face. "I don't drink coffee."

It only took ten minutes for the judge to come to his decision, and Speedle sat on one of the benches outside, alternately checking his watch and tapped a foot on the ground impatiently. Everyone that had been in the courtroom, watching the case unfold, had gathered around that area, whispering comments to each other only when they thought it was absolutely necessary. He wasn't the only one fidgeting, he noticed. Everyone seemed to be shifting on their feet, looking towards the courtroom doors, and then around them, as if they would be able to find something that would catch their attention.

And only ten minutes after the lawyers had disappeared inside, they re-emerged from the courtroom, deep in discussion. They stopped long enough to shake hands before Pauline headed in his direction, her expression unreadable. She stopped in front of him as he stood up and met her eyes. "They threw out the evidence. If you can't find anything in the next forty eight hours, something other than what we already had, and without your search warrants…then the judge is going to throw out the case altogether, and we'll never have another chance to charge him with this. Double jeopardy, after all."

"I'll go back to the lab, see what I can come up with."

"Good. I'm going back to my office. I have to call the other families and see if I can convince them to allow their children to testify. I had a bad feeling about this when I could only secure one of them to come on the stand. Now I'm really going to have to kiss some ass." She started to turn away, but stopped suddenly, looking over her shoulder at him. "Call me the second that you know anything, Speedle. I'm serious this time."

He simply nodded and turned to leave.

As soon as Speedle got back to the lab, he ripped off his tie and threw it in the corner. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt, shoved his arms through his lab coat, and then dropped the box full of usable evidence on the layout table. He lifted the lid and took everything out, one item at a time, laying it carefully on the table. A printout of all of his reports were on the corner of the table and he sat down, beginning to leaf through them as he re-examined each piece of evidence with his eyes.

He couldn't help but wonder how useless the entire process was going to be. He had gone through everything at least three times, ran numerous lab tests, and complied all the evidence that he could. That search warrant that he had gotten was because the evidence was solid enough to support one, not because Pauline McIntosh had done him a favor. There was nothing wrong with his evidence, he realized, a flash of anger coming over him quickly, before it disappeared completely.

He didn't know what was wrong with the judge. On a whole, the lab had gotten many fingerprint comparisons through the system when they had been identified and matched by eye, rather than computer. Sure, there was an margin of error there, and yes, it was slightly more than AFIS, but computer's could make mistakes as well. The fact that he had spent three hours, hunched over that same table, looking through a magnifying glass, meant nothing. The fact that when he had finished, his eyes felt like they were burning intensely, his neck felt like it would never support his head again, his back would never be the same, and matched the prints correctly with more comparison points than the Florida justice system asked for meant nothing. According to the judge, it was bullshit evidence.

A strange look went over his face as he reached for the cell phone attached to his belt, looking through the directory before he found Pauline's office number. He dialed and waited for her to pickup. "Pauline McIntosh," he heard her cheerfully chirp only seconds later.

"Interviewing someone?" he asked, almost amused at the change in her voice.

"At the moment, yes, I am a little busy. You found something, Speedle?"

He paused, unsure of whether he should bring up the reason he called or not. "Not exactly, but I've been doing some thinking. The warrant that you got wasn't from that judge, correct?"

"Correct. Technically, with pre-knowledge of the case and what we were gathering, that judge couldn't really sit on this case. It was Judge Steinman that gave us the warrant, not Judge Walker. Why, does the warrant not have any legality now?"

"No, it's not that. How many times have you tried a case in front of Judge Walker?"

There was a long pause. "A few times, no more than ten. What with those three judges retiring last year, they've been short of bench-sitters, and they're still waiting to up a few people from the lower ranks. What are you getting at, Speedle? I'm talking to my investigator right now."

"How many cases have you lost in front of Judge Walker?"

The pause was even longer this time. "All but two, but most of those were on technicalities, or because witnesses recounted their stories. It's nothing unusual. Judge Walker is a tough judge, anyway. To get good, solid evidence past him is becoming more and more difficult. He's a great guy. Trust me, I worked with him here at the office. He was the District Attorney when I came on. He got me my job. He doesn't have a vendetta out against me…as far as I know."

"Is there a reason why he would?"

"Why are you questioning me like I'm a suspect or something? Speedle, you're looking in the wrong direction. Yeah, right now, I don't consider Judge Walker to be such a great guy. In fact, I could kill him right now. But that doesn't mean that he's purposely doing this to me. He doubts the legality of the search warrant, he doubts the methods used to match the prints, and there's nothing we can do about it. Would it make you feel any better if I talked to him? Because I can, you know. I'll head over there as soon as I'm done here, with our private investigator. But I have to ask you, since you seem to be so hot to trot on Kev…Judge Walker…is there a reason why you're attacking him?"

He made a frustrated noise at the back of his throat and leaned back in his chair, eyes going towards the ceiling as he begged himself not to go off on her again. "No, that's not it. Look, Miss McIntosh, there's something wrong with this case. There's something wrong with the entire way that this was handled, and I want to figure it out. You asked me to go back over the evidence, but there won't be anything there that I wouldn't have already seen."

"Then find some new evidence and stop pointing the finger towards the Judge. I have to go. I'll talk to you tomorrow, if you don't find anything tonight. Have a good night, Speedle," she spat out before hanging up on him.

He looked down at his phone, before shutting it off and putting it back into place. "God, I hate her!"


	3. Chapter Three

Title- Heaven Coming Down

Author- pepsicolagurl

Rating- R (or M) for language, violence, situations, and the whole shebang

Disclaimer- See Chapter One. It has all the details that you need to not sue me.

Author's Notes- Yay, I'm back! Not writing the story that I should, but at least I found that I could write again after this long break. Here's hoping that it lasts!

* * *

Heaven Coming Down  
Part One  
Chapter Three

Calleigh Duquense jumped when a coffee cup appeared in front of her face. A smile quickly took over her face as she recognized the well manicured nails on the hand that was holding the cup. "Thanks, Pauline. What's the occasion?"

"A murder. Or a fight," she answered, a quick grin coming to her tired face. "How've you been lately?" she asked, handing over the coffee cup and then sipping from her own.

"You know me. I'm as happy as could be when I get to spend the day firing guns and comparing striations. There's just something about the smell of gun powder and…what?"

Pauline laughed slightly, shaking her head so that her brilliant blonde hair fell in her face. "You're a sick, sick woman, Cal. I can understand getting off on the smell of a man's cologne or the feel of a man's hand on your skin…but you get off on holding and firing guns. You can be as poetic about the weight and feel of a Magnum as I can be about a hot, torrid affair with the wrong type of guy."

"Please, you know that I'm just teasing you," Calleigh proclaimed, nudging her friend with her shoulder. "I like a good man just as much as you do, but I'm talking about work, not my love life. And speaking of love lives, what would you know about hot, torrid affairs? The word around here is that you haven't got any in a long time."

The prosecutor rolled her eyes, fingers picking at the cardboard sleeve around her cup of coffee. "Let me guess, Speedle says that I'm sexually frustrated and that's why I attack him all the time."

Calleigh laughed, the sound of which rang down the hallways of the lab. "Honey, Tim Speedle would never say a thing like that about you. Eric Delko on the other hand…well, you know how the first thing on his mind is always sex. I think he's just frustrated with you. All the times he's hit on you, and you aren't giving the ladies man a thing. Not even a little crumb. So you're either having a hot, torrid affair with someone that I don't know of, or you're just not getting any at all."

"Did you just accuse me of being a frigid bitch?" Pauline asked incredulously, laughing when Calleigh nodded her head with a playful smile touching her lips. "Well, whatever may be going on in my sex life at the moment, it's not the business of anyone, even you, Cal. Sorry, but a girl has to keep a few things secret, even from her close friends."

The blonde criminalist waved a hand. "I'll get enough wine into you on of these nights that you'll put out." They both watched as a lab tech walked past them with a peculiar look on his face. "Oops, now we're lesbian lovers. Anyway, was this a social visit or did you come down here for a reason?"

"Other than to give you coffee? Yeah, I have a reason, and as usual, it has to do with my frustration over Speedle. Don't ask, honey, because I'm not giving you any answers until I have some of my own. Do you know where he'd hiding out?"

"Trace. When he isn't out in the field or in the morgue, he's in the trace lab, like always. I have him running a few things for my case while he's working on the evidence from your case. I'm sorry about that, Pauline. I just can't believe that the judge would throw out all of that evidence because Speed had to eyeball a print. It doesn't make sense to me."

With a shake of her head, the smile died off of Pauline's face. "It seems like no one can believe it, the defense attorney included. He called and apologized for gloating yesterday when it happened. Even he can't see how that could happen. Sure, Speedle should have told me about how he processed the print, rather than let the defense attorney drag it out of him…huh, that's strange," she said softly, her eyes going off to the side as she thought about what she had just said. "It seems I have a few meetings today. I need to talk to Thom about that. I'll talk to you later."

"Sure", Calleigh said, watching as her friend walked off with a determined step.

Pauline took the familiar path to the trace evidence lab, and walked in, not bothering to look around and see if someone else was in the room. "I have to admit, Speedle, I never thought that you'd stoop this low," she started, before digging in her briefcase for something.

Speedle sighed and raised his eyes to look at the woman, almost yelping in surprise when a plain white envelope hit him square in the chest and fell to the examination table. "Watch it! What if I had evidence there?"

"I'm not that stupid," she shot back, her grip tightening on her coffee cup. "Did you think that your little note was funny? Because I sure as hell didn't think it was."

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, disregarding the fact that he still had his latex gloves on as he opened the envelope and slid out the folded piece of paper. Opening it, he looked at the printed message and almost scoffed. "Please. Why would I send this to you? If you think that I did this, then you have more problems than I originally thought."

She matched his smirk with one of her own. "It seems like something that you would do, just to piss me off. And I don't appreciate it."

Someone cleared their throat from behind her, and she spun around quickly, looking at the lanky redhead. "Lieutenant. I'm sorry, I didn't know that you were there. But if you don't mind, I really need to talk with Speedle. Alone."

Horatio smiled from his position in the corner. "I would be more than happy to do that, Pauline…if you tell me what this is all about. I have to admit, you've become quite the disruption around here." He walked past her gracefully and went to stand behind Speedle, looking over his shoulder at the note. "Did you think that this was something that you should have brought to my attention?" he asked softly, a moment after he scanned the letter.

"What in the world are you talking about?" Pauline asked, exasperated, as she grabbed a nearby stool and sat down primly, crossing her legs and tugging down on her skirt. "It's someone's sick idea of a joke," she added, glaring at Speedle the entire time.

"Like the scratches on your car, and that message that was spray painted behind your parking space? It doesn't seem like much yet, but you have to realize that this is all adding up to something."

"That there's a sick freak out there that's trying to annoy me! There's nothing wrong, Horatio, other than the fact that your criminalist think that something like this is funny. And don't give me that innocent look, Detective Speedle. This is right up your alley."

Speedle smirked, still holding onto the piece of paper as he regarded her carefully. "Aw, does the big bad prosecutor have a stalker?" Her only response was to hold up her middle finger and wave it in his direction. "I didn't send this to you, Miss McIntosh. I may not like you, I even despise you, but even I wouldn't kick a woman when she's down."

A single, perfectly plucked eyebrow rose slowly. "Really. Could have fooled me." She turned to look at the redhead. "Horatio, trust me. If something were going on, I would tell you. But this is just another coincidence in a long line of them. They don't add up. Someone's mad about me over something, sure. I probably put a loved one in jail, or couldn't put someone in jail, and they're taking it out of me. Which is understandable. But this…if Speedle didn't send it, then whoever did was just trying to get me to react to it."

"Which they did very well," Horatio pointed out. "This isn't something that you can take lightly."

"And it's not something that should be taken seriously. My God, you people overreact over nothing." She stood up and checked her watch, shaking her head. "I have to go meet with the judge in chambers. He wants to know if we have anything significant to report. Have a good day, gentlemen," she added before storming out.

They both stood there for a moment, gaping after her. Speedle was the one to break the silence, as he carefully laid the letter on the table in front of him, shaking his head with his ever-present smirk appearing again. "Talk about overreacting," he muttered, before turning to go back to his evidence. He stopped the moment he felt the light touch on his shoulder.

"She may have been overreacting, but this is something that we should look into, Speed." Horatio met his eyes. "This isn't the first letter that she's received, and along with her car being scratched, and the 'bitch' that was written behind her car, I think that there could be something going on. She's too used to things like this happening to take it seriously anymore."

He shook his head. "How do you know if there have been other letters? She wouldn't tell you if there were."

"No, but she would tell Calleigh, and I do have a few friends in the district attorney's building. I know for a fact that this isn't the first one set in this tone." He turned to leave. "Look into it for me, Speedle. Very quietly. Look at her recent cases, the judges that sat on them, whatever it is, you have to find it."

"You're asking me to look for a needle in a haystack," he protested.

"Then find me that needle."

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Pauline muttered, taking another look at the slim gold watch that encircled her wrist. "He was supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. I have things to do today. I can't sit around waiting for the judge."

The defense attorney rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his chair, looking towards the empty desk where the judge should have been sitting. "Even I'm beginning to get fed up," he told her, turning to look at him. "You know, you could just share what you know with me right now, and we could go from there. We don't need a judge to mediate for us."

"Technically, we do," she shot back, crossing her arms. "He cleared his docket for this case, and this case alone, because he knew it was going to be so complicated and long, so I don't see what could be keeping him, unless he's stuck at some business lunch."

"Probably throwing back a few brandies at the nineteenth hole." Thom grinned at her, finally turning to look at her. "So tell me, Pauline, is your criminalist beating himself up over the fact that I had to pull the information from him?"

Now she was the one rolling her eyes. "I wish. No, he's as arrogant and stubborn as ever. You ever worked a case that Speedle was involved in?"

"Once or twice, far back as I can remember. He's a little stiff. Not really into the process of being questioned, I imagine."

"Take him away from his precious microscope, and it's the end of the world. Want my advice, Thom? Don't work any cases that he's involved in. He's a damned good criminalist, I'll give him that, but if I had my choice, I'd rather put a rookie investigator on the stand rather than him. He's just no good at this sort of thing. I cringe anytime I see his name on the paperwork." Pauline laughed suddenly. "Truth is, I'd much rather have Horatio Caine on the stand than anyone."

Thom smiled. "Ah, yes. The infallible Horatio Caine. Haven't had the pleasure of working with him, yet. I hear he's a bit of a hothead, though."

"Only when the time calls for it. He's also the most calm, cool, collected guy that you'll ever meet. He at least knows what he's doing when you question him."

The conversation died off, and they sat again in silence, save for Pauline tapping her high heel on the ground impatiently. Another five minutes clicked by before she finally pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and looked through the directory, finding the judge's home number. She let it ring until his voice mail picked up, then hung up the phone with a huff.

"That's it, I'm not waiting around anymore," she muttered to herself, standing up and walking over to the judge's desk. She found a pad of paper and a pen, scribbling down a note and leaving it in the center of the desk, where he would be sure to find it. "I'm sorry, Thom, but I've got to go. I asked the judge to call us and reschedule at his convenience," she said as she looked at her watch before scribbling down the time. "Damn it!" she cried suddenly.

"What now?" the defense attorney asked as he stood up, collecting his briefcase and the legal pad that had been sitting on his knee.

She shook her head with a sigh. "Oh, nothing. I just noticed that I lost a diamond off my watch, that's all. I swear, this thing is worth more trouble than it should be. It was damned expensive, too." With a frown on her face, she stepped around the desk and got her things as well, walking to the door with him. "Well, no matter what happens, we still on for drinks tomorrow night?"

"Of course. I wouldn't let a little thing like this come between our friendship," he teased, holding the door open for her.

"I'm sorry," she said sweetly. "I didn't realize that there was any sort of friendship between us."


End file.
